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Eumnu挹婁

Hou Han Shu Dongyi Zhuan (Accounts of the Eastern Yi in the Book of the Later Han) 後漢書 東夷列傳 · Fan Ye · 5th century (about 432–445) · 1 passages · 251 Chinese characters · reading time 1.0 min

Hou Han Shu Dongyi Zhuan (Accounts of the Eastern Yi in the Book of the Later Han) Complete in one volume A fifth-century man's ordering of how China looked at the east through the two hundred years of the Later Han. Buyeo, Eumnu, Goguryeo, Eastern Okjeo, Ye, the Three Han and Wa come in turn. Compiled some hundred and fifty years after the Accounts of the Eastern Yi in the Records of the Three Kingdoms, yet treating an earlier age, it lays bare side by side what each of the two books left out and what it added at the same places. Here are the tale of Dongmyeong striking the water with his bow and founding Buyeo, how Himiko came to be set up as ruler, and the Sodo that Mahan raised by hanging bells and drums on a great tree.

1Eumnu — the country of the old Sushen, who do not use the sacrificial vessels

挹婁,古肅慎之國也。在夫餘東北千餘里,東濱大海,南與北沃沮接,不知其北所極。土地多山險。人形似夫餘,而言語各異。有五穀、麻布,出赤玉、好貂。無君長,其邑落各有大人。處於山林之間,土氣極寒,常為穴居,以深為貴,大家至接九梯。好養豕,食其肉,衣其皮。冬以豕膏塗身,厚數分,以御風寒。夏則裸袒,以尺布蔽其前後。其人臭穢不潔,作廁於中,圜之而居。自漢興以後,臣屬夫餘。種眾雖少,而多勇力,處山險,又善射,發能入人目。弓長四尺,力如弩。矢用枯,長一尺八寸,青石為鏃,鏃皆施毒,中人即死。便乘船,好寇盜,鄰國畏患,而卒不能服。東夷夫餘飲食類皆用俎豆,唯挹婁獨無,法俗最無綱紀者也。

Eumnu is the country of the old Sushen. It lies more than a thousand li northeast of Buyeo, and on the east it reaches the great sea. It borders Northern Okjeo on the south, and how far it goes to the north is not known. In that land there are many steep mountains. The people are like those of Buyeo in their looks, but their speech is not the same. They have the five grains and hemp cloth, and red jade and fine sable come from there.

They have no ruler, and each of their settlements has its own great man. They live among the mountain forests, and the air of the land is bitterly cold, so they always dwell in pits, and they hold the deeper to be the better, and a great house goes down nine ladders deep. They love to raise pigs, and they eat the flesh and wear the skins. In winter they smear pig fat on their bodies, a few tenths of an inch thick, to keep out the wind and the cold. In summer they go naked, and cover themselves before and behind with a foot of cloth. The people stink and are unclean, and they make their privy in the middle and live in a ring about it.

After the rise of Han they were subject to Buyeo. Their tribe is few in number, but many of them are strong, and they live in steep mountains, and they shoot well besides, and can hit a man in the eye. Their bows are four feet long and as strong as a crossbow. Their arrows are of bush-clover wood, a foot and eight inches long, with heads of green stone, and all the heads are smeared with poison, so that a man who is hit dies at once. They handle boats readily and love to rob and plunder, and the neighboring countries feared and dreaded them, but in the end could not bring them to submit.

Among the Eastern Yi the Buyeo use the sacrificial vessels for the most part in eating and drinking, and only the Eumnu have none, so that in law and custom they are the ones most without order.